Who are Your Favorite Literary Narrators in Books for Kids? (Not audio readers!)

Creating a lively narrative voice is difficult. It’s good to have examples that we can learn from.

So I was interested to note that a couple of weeks ago Publishers Weekly posted an article by author Antoine Wilson listing his top ten picks for best narrators. (Reliable or unreliable.) Two on his list were Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. Most of his listed narrators appear in books for adults. Naturally, it made me think about narrators in books for kids.

I have a few favorites—what about Christopher of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME? Or Joey Pigza of JOEY PIGZA LOSES CONTROL? Or Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood of WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE? Or Primrose Squarp of EVERYTHING ON A WAFFLE? Or Death in THE BOOK THIEF? Or Alexander T. Wolf of THE TRUE STORY OF THE 3 LITTLE PIGS?

Let me know your favorite top 3 or 4 narrators—max. (Remember, these are not necessarily main characters!) I’ll try to compile a list of strong/interesting narrators of books written for children. (All ages—baby to young adult.) Please limit your choices! We want thoughtful responses.

So let’s say you have about a month. Somewhere around the end of November, 2012, I’ll post the top repeat winners. It will be fun to see who we come up with! Please spread the word to fellow writers, readers, librarians, teachers, booksellers and others by reposting, tweeting and putting up on your Facebook/web page.

I’ll even sweeten the deal! I’ll keep track of all responders, and at the end of the period I’ll randomly draw the name of a responder. That person will win a free copy of one of my books, autographed.

Leave your nominations for great narrators in the comments field below…

About Shutta

Shutta Crum writes picture books for children, novels for teens and poetry for adults. She is also a storyteller, a public speaker and a librarian. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, and her articles about teaching and writing have appeared in many professional journals. In 2005, she was honored by being one of eight authors invited to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. In 2010 she was invited to tour American military base schools across Japan. Her latest book is MOUSELING’S WORDS(Clarion, 2017). It has garnered glowing reviews.

Post navigation

16 Responses

Not told in first person, but from the point of view of the main character: Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain, Far Side of the Mountain, and Frightful’s Mountain. Ronia by Astrid Lingren, is one of my favorite children’s books of all times.

Nate the Great.
Katniss in the Hunger Games series
Princess Academy – don’t remember the main character . Author Shannon Hale
Amal the main the character of (Does My Head look in this?) author -Randa Abdel-Fattah

Pseudonymous Bosch–The Name of This Book is Secret (and the other books in the series). Full of humor.
Dr. Cuthbert Soup–A Whole Nother Story (and the others in the series). Again, laugh out loud humor.
Holling Hoodhood–The Wednesday Wars–authentic young tween boy, honesty, humor, emotion

For traditional third-person: Ursula LeGuin’s “Earthsea” series (love the language)
For modern first-person YA: The title character of E. Lockhart’s “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks” (funny & real)
For crazy MG: Lemony Snicket in “Series of Unfortunate Events” (the fourth-wall stuff is fun)

Millicent Min from Lisa Yee’s Millicent Min, Girl Genius immediately came to mind as one of my daughters used her opening remarks for a monologue in drama class. Also, Alexandria in Goose Chase by Patrice Kindl.

What fun, Shutta! But soooo hard to choose…I’ll go with Ry from As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth (Lynne Rae Perkins), Jack Gantos from Dead End in Norvelt (Jack Gantos), and of course, India Opal Buloni in Because of Winn Dixie (Kate DiCamillo).